POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

woodchucker said:
living in that heat, don't you want insulation up there to keep the heat from the roof from cooking you?
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That is coming... and an A/C unit for this garage as well... Workshop has the priority right now. Can't use the budget on anything else for now.

Good news is that I got a message from the contractor. They are finally working on my building. Once done they will schedule delivery and install... If all goes well, I will have the shop before the end of this month. Then it is getting an electrician to run power to it...
 
IHinIN said:
I built a 12’x20’ roll-up booth in my garage when I was painting an old Cub Cadet. There are three 20”x20” filters on the back side and two box fans on the front that pull air from the booth and blow out under the garage door. The fans have filters over them as well to catch overspray. It only takes about 10 minutes to set up and be ready to paint. There is enough airflow through the booth that I’ve never had any issues with paint fog.

View attachment 477020View attachment 477021

The paint turned out pretty good considering my limited painting skills and the cheap farm store paint I used.


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Be careful with box fans and flammable paint…..
 
woodchucker said:
why, there are no brushes on a box fan. What danger?
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Box fan motors aren't explosion proof motors. Switches can arc too. Agree that in most cases it's probably fine, and most of us would get away with using them for a lifetime without issue.

But, it reminds me of a time we were sanding floors in our house. I had never seen a dust explosion in my life, but have always been warned of them and was aware of them. Wife was disconnecting a hose from a sander, and there was a static spark between the vacuum hose and sander. I saw the spark. That spark ignited the fine sanding dust in the hose and it sounded like a fire cracker went off. Burned her hand. Up until that day, I was skeptical of of the whole situation being possible.

Problems with a box fan may be extremely rare. But the consequences of that rare event might not be good.
 
dkemppai said:
Box fan motors aren't explosion proof motors. Switches can arc too. Agree that in most cases it's probably fine, and most of us would get away with using them for a lifetime without issue.

But, it reminds me of a time we were sanding floors in our house. I had never seen a dust explosion in my life, but have always been warned of them and was aware of them. Wife was disconnecting a hose from a sander, and there was a static spark between the vacuum hose and sander. I saw the spark. That spark ignited the fine sanding dust in the hose and it sounded like a fire cracker went off. Burned her hand. Up until that day, I was skeptical of of the whole situation being possible.

Problems with a box fan may be extremely rare. But the consequences of that rare event might not be good.
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what you are describing was a static discharge. Not at all related to the fan, or vac. I had 2 friends that purchased explosion proof exhaust fans for spraying their models. I looked at each and thought to myself, what a waste. They appeared no different to me than a box fan motor. I was pressed to find a difference. Although it was from a foot away, and not a detailed investigation, I was troubled by it.
 
woodchucker said:
what you are describing was a static discharge. Not at all related to the fan, or vac. I had 2 friends
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A spark obviously caused the ignition. Explosion proof equipment is designed to not spark. Whether the fan you saw was actually certified explosion proof or was just marketed as such is perhaps up for debate. I think the lesson here is to keep the dust level below the flammable/explosion level, turn your fan on before such a level of dust accumulates. Most of our shops and homes are a long shot from being safe from possible ignition sources.

Here's an example of something that happened when I lived nearby as a result of an industrial dust (sugar) explosion.
Anyone want to work in a gunpowder factory?
 
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Recently purged the cabinet shop of years of accumulated pieces of wood that were too good to throw out but never seamed to get used. Used the tractor to move the scrap in the bucket to the burn site. Probably burnt 20 buckets full of scrap 1 - 3 feet long. Just dumping the stock on the fire. Then swept up the shavings and such that collected under and in all those scrap piles. Dumped it on the fire from a good height to get the most effect, quite a fire ball as the fire front advanced faster than the shavings fell. Did a couple of those buckets, Then cleaned out behind the chop saw and band saw, nice fine material, baked totally dry by the heated floor. Dumped that on, again from probably 6 feet. The flash from it came all the way back to me on the seat, (no injury), but the impressive part to me was the flash burnt the oxygen from the air to the point the diesel engine almost died, got air again and restarted itself.
Please, no safety lectures, its was a controlled burn and even had a fire permit for it.

Greg
 
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